Jane Ann Turzillo Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Jane Ann Turzillo is an award-winning novelist and journalist that has won awards from the Federation of Press Women. The author also has two Agatha Award nominations for her true crime fiction works mostly based in Ohio.
She embarked on her writing career when she got a job as a journalist. From there, she worked hard to become one of the wonders of a large weekly paper where she used to write a lot about fire, police, and hard news.

As for her education, she has degrees in mass media communication and criminal justice from the University of Akron.

Having been in the writing industry for quite a while she is a member of many writing organizations.

She has membership in the Sisters in Crime, Author’s Guild, Society of Professional Journalists, Mystery Writers of America, and National Federation of Press Women.
Jane Ann sometimes interacts with her fans and readers through her blog and the newsletter on her website.

Growing up, Jane Ann Turzillo used to love listening to the many stories that her great-mother used to tell.

These were stories that connected her to her ancestor and went back to a time when there were no video games, cars, tablets, telephones, smartphones, or televisions.

Much of the time, the stories they would be told contained either a puzzle with several missing pieces or a mystery that try hard as she might often could find no resolution.
She was fascinated by the answers to the mysteries and the missing pieces and this is perhaps what made her become a detective crime and mystery author.

Ann Turzillo also makes use of the settings and stories about her hometown in the writing of her novels.
In interviews, she has often described the community hero as the tall town doctor and described the train employees as wild-eyed men instructed by a man named Pere Marquette who used to drive heavily laden logging wagons at great speed across town.
It was an interesting as well as difficult time as she also remembers settings such as Potters Field in which a few people would gather under the cover of the night to bury victims of the great diphtheria epidemic.

As an adult, Jane Ann Turzillo began working for a small weekly newspaper known as the Fairlawn Village Views as a police reporter on crime.

After working there for several years, five of them broke away and started the West Side Leader which was a much larger weekly.

Turzillo used to write all the fire and police news in addition to a historical crime column and Focus on Success a business column. Her writing would win her several National Federation of Press Women journalism awards.
During that time, she penned articles and short stories which were published in magazines and newspapers in Canada and the United States.

Later she taught literature and writing at a business college and then edited and developed newsletters for an accounting firm.

While she was working at a private elementary school named the Old Trail where she was charged with developing and launching the school’s alumni magazine.
However one of her favorite gigs ever has to be when she worked for several Akron Art Museum publications.

In the present, Jane Ann Turzillo combines her fascination with true crime and her love for history in the writing of her crime fiction novels.

She often gives presentations on crime fiction and crime writing in libraries, book clubs, books stores, historical societies, and many other platforms. She has been a presenter in venues such as a moving train, a church, a college, and a museum.
When she is not penning her novels, she can often be found outdoors with her camera. She loves to travel and has photographs taken from across the globe even though her favorite place has to be New Mexico.

Jane Ann Turzillo’s novel “Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio” is one of the most brilliant true crime genre fiction books you could ever read.

The work looks into two unsolved disappearances and eight murders. They include cases that never received much public attention including providing insights into the potential motives for the crimes and why they may not or may have been resolved.
The novel looks into the killings of a railroad’s chief engineer, a police department patrolman, a politician, a dairy farmer, two school teachers, a female carnival workers society matron, and a Sunday school superintendent.
This book also gets into the disappearances of a teenager who went for an evening walk and disappeared and of a toddler stolen from her home.
It is a work that has all manner of accusations of infidelity and illicit dealing combined with struggles of power and intrigue.

“Wicked Women of Ohio” by Jane Ann Turzillo is a true crime fiction novel with a midwestern twist.

It is a work in which we get to hear some interesting stories of the most notorious villains, viragoes, and vixens in Ohio. The Buckeye state was the producer of a large number of wicked women just like any other midwestern state.
It introduces Madam Clara Palmer a tenacious woman who had to endure constant raids from the police during the 1880s and the 1890s. The only thing that could stop her and her Cleveland-based bordello was death.
Another interesting character is Mildred Gillars, a failed actress who left home and headed for Europe just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

But she made the mistake of falling in love with the wrong man and become a peddler of Nazi propaganda under the nickname Axis Sally.

Hester Foster is a volatile woman who was imprisoned at the Ohio State Penitentiary when she killed another inmate by hitting them over the head with a shovel.
It is a good read that provides historical context into how women were treated as compared to men.

Jane Ann Turzillo’s “Wicked Women of Northeast Ohio” is a work in which the author tells the story of ten women who will not play by the rules no matter what. These are women who let out their base impulses making use of poison, guns axes, and more.
There is Velma West who is a girl barely out of her teens who finds herself too near to a hammer which she uses when the argument gets too hot.

Ellen Athey from New Philadelphia is no lady and finds herself in a lot of trouble after making good use of an axe.

Lastly is the woman named Ardell Quin who made history for being in charge and operating one of the most resilient brothels in Cleveland and not because she was very good with business.
It makes for a delicious and very entertaining work even if it can sometimes get grim.